Bitter
by Shinbi
Summary: Ken reflects on the death of a friend and the racism that caused it.


Disclaimer: Don't know them, don't own them, don't sue me. I claim ownership only of any non-Ducks characters.

Notes: Written from Ken's POV, relates two incidents that have happened here in MN in the past few years. One I am able (unfortunately) to claim personal connection to. I wrote this after the enthusiastic response to "Pride." This piece is a lot more intense, and has no plot, it's just Ken's take on a situation that's getting out of control. 

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BITTER

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By: Shinbi

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17-year-old Shoua Lee wasn't a bad kid. According to his parents, he was a solid student, a hard worker and a devoted son. Friday night, the Eden Hall senior was shot to death by police in a gang-related incident. It was the fourth such shooting in two months in St. Paul's east side, and questions are starting to be asked. Asian gangs have sprung up in the last few years with the influx of primarily southeast Asian immigrants. They follow a basic template: gangs form around country of origin and fight eachother for territory…

I throw down the paper in disgust, drawing curious glances from my teammates at the breakfast table. I just look away. Sure, everyone's heard about the shooting, but nobody's really given it much thought. They just assume Shoua got what was coming to him. They don't get it. They don't understand the reality of his situation.

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Shoua Lee walked into his family's house and was immediately surrounded by his younger siblings. They grabbed at his arms and shirt and clung to his jeans, chattering nervously, speaking in soft tones with an edge of fear. 

"Shoua, Mom and Dad were yelling a lot today," 12-year-old Xen exclaimed.

"Yeah, Dad was throwing stuff around," little Xee added.

"And he said he was going to get his gun out," Deng chimed in. 15-year-old Shoua felt his heart sink. When was this going to end? He'd told his father time and time again that the gun had to go, that it was dangerous to have it in the house with all the kids around. Assuring his brothers and sisters that things would be okay, he ushered them back to their bedrooms.

Shoua was one of my best friends. He was the only Hmong kid in school, the second son in a family of 13. His parents were dead, victims of a murder-suicide two years ago. He got into Eden Hall on scholarship because his grades were so good at Central, and because he was a good soccer player. Once he got here, he took every advanced course possible—Advanced Placement, Honors, whatever. And he put up with a ton of racism. Kids really got down on him because he was Hmong. I was okay with most people because I was Chinese and most people are at least vaguely familiar with China because of martial arts movies and the like. But people don't understand the Hmong or the Laotian or even the Vietnamese. They think they're bad, like the Mexicans. White preps just have something against southeast Asians. 

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Shoua woke to the sounds of screaming and crashes from the kitchen. He scrambled out of bed and ran out into the hallway, where his siblings were huddled outside the kitchen door.

"Go to your rooms!" he exclaimed sharply, galvanized by fear. The last thing he wanted his siblings to see was a fight between their parents with him in the middle. As his brothers and sisters hurriedly obeyed, he realized one of his brothers was missing.

"Xen, where's Deng?"

The papers make it sound like gang stuff is all our fault. Yeah, our fault. Not just their fault. Our fault. All of us Asians are at fault for this. White people just don't get it that we aren't all the same. We aren't all one big group that they can classify and generalize. See, East Asians like me, we have it easier than the southeast Asian kids. East Asian culture is what provoked the model minority syndrome. Our parents stress hard work, discipline, respect…all that good stuff. And they were the first Asians in America, so we've been around a long time. Southeast Asians just started coming a few years ago, because the situation in Laos got so bad. They came with nothing, just clothes. They were dirt poor, like a lot of the Mexicans, and they had to work for every inch, every damn penny. Their culture is very spiritually oriented, meaning they believe spirits come back and wander among the living. It's a lot different than my culture and a ton different than Western culture, and it's no wonder that kids got dragged into gang life. They want to be themselves, they don't want to be molded into the White world, but they don't want to stay in their parents' world either. Shoua was always telling me that he thought his aunt and uncle were borderline crazy for what they believed. 

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"You crazy bitch! I'll kill you!" Shoua felt his stomach lurch as he stepped into the kitchen. There was blood on the floor, and out on the patio, his father was standing over his mother with his gun in one hand and a knife in the other.

"Dad, stop!" He didn't know what to do, didn't know how he was supposed to stop this nightmare. He was a kid, a fifteen-year old child, caught in the middle of a deadly argument. There were no older brothers to help him, to shoulder some of the responsibility.

As he watched in helpless shock, his father ended both his life and the life of Shoua's mother, and the boy felt as though he were going to pass out. In a daze, he staggered back to the house to call the police. As he stepped into the kitchen, he heard someone crying. His eyes went to the small figure huddled under the table. Deng had seen the whole thing.

That whole murder-suicide thing really put a dent in family relations in the Lee family. Shoua never really talked to me about it, but what he did tell me didn't leave me with a favorable impression. I think Shoua had a rough time of it at home, and that's why he fell in with the wrong crowd.

But for real. You can't blame him. Hmong kid in an all-white prep school? Yeah, if you were him, you would have done the same thing. He needed a family, he needed friends. Gangs give you that. They give you people that watch your back and don't let you down. For Shoua, to be around a group of guys that were dealing with the same things as him was probably the closest thing he ever had to a family. 

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Things were getting out of hand. The white kids were talking dirtier and dirtier, and Shoua's friends were throwing it right back. Two of the white kids held knives loosely in their hands, and though Shoua was not afraid of them, he would rather not take a knife in the ribs.

"Come on, guys, let's go," he told his friends. Pao shrugged off his hand.

"Whatever, man. We just getting started." Shoua shook his head. He didn't like this. They were out in the open, in a bad part of town where there were too many gangs to count and too many enemies to look out for. 

"No, Pao, I don't like it. Something's wrong. Let's go," he said firmly. Pao glanced at him, saw he was for real, and nodded. Shoua was the perceptive one of the group, and they more or less listened to him. Throwing a few more swear words over his shoulder, Pao led his friends back towards their cars. Before they had even taken three steps, there was a loud bang and Pao crumpled without a sound, his body folding in on itself like paper. Three more bangs followed and Shoua instinctively ducked down, looking around, rage building inside him that the white kids would shoot at their backs. 

Two more bangs, and Shoua saw no more.

I know, I know. Everyone says the same thing. Gang kids do drugs, smoke, drink, get in fights, the works. Well, not Shoua, and not his friends. Sure, they got in fights occasionally with the white kids, but that was only when the white kids got in their faces. They didn't do drugs, they didn't smoke, and they only drank once in awhile, which, sufficed to say, is pretty rare these days. Kids drink hard here.

We just need a place to belong. I've never tried gang life, because my parents would kill me, and I just don't have the attitude for it, but it's appealing. Now more so than ever. When I was in San Francisco, I had plenty of Asian friends who understood what it was like growing up second-generation. We didn't have to be in a gang to find acceptance. In Minnesota, especially in Eden Hall, there aren't any kids like that. You have to be in a gang to find people who understand what you're going through. If you don't want to live that life, well, then you just keep it to yourself. That's what I do. I sit in my dorm and curse alternately my own origins and the stupidity of the white preps around here.

Look, I don't hate white kids, I really don't. Most of them are okay, and I don't want to sound like I'm grouping them all together. But I don't really like them either. They just don't get the fact that we have to be ourselves. We have to be Chinese, Hmong, Korean, Japanese. It isn't all our fault that we get dragged down, get it? Society—white society--has gotta shoulder some of the responsibility. They patronize, they trivialize, they criticize, and ultimately they blame. We are all to blame for our own misfortune.

Bullsh*t. Bull f*cking sh*t. You think Shoua asked that police officer to shoot him? You think he asked him to take him away from his brothers and sisters? You think he wanted to die?

Shoulder your damn responsibility.


End file.
